


This was us (and we were good)

by Still_sleepless



Series: we'll cry the oceans clean [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Coming of Age, Graduation, M/M, Moving On, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:01:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22135225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Still_sleepless/pseuds/Still_sleepless
Summary: Even now, at the end of a dizzying decade, they regret nothing.//Renjun lives, blinded by the city lights and a chance to grab at fame that grows ever elusive by the day.
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Lee Jeno
Series: we'll cry the oceans clean [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1625164
Comments: 7
Kudos: 19





	This was us (and we were good)

**Author's Note:**

> these days run like a cascading waterfall and we flutter in the breeze, afraid and untethered. our mortality is more than it seems. an attempt to breath life and structure where there isn't any. and we're just warm bodies given thoughts that aren't our own. the new millennium is too young and we are younger still - blinded by the glare of the sun when really, we're in the shadow of the moon. it'll take more than money or clingy hands to move me from this place, this space in time where i'm nothing. but i'm something when i'm with you.
> 
> EDIT: 14/04/20
> 
> It's just been announced that after the next comeback NCT DREAM will no longer have the graduation concept. It will now be a rotational concept with all OT7 members similar to NCT-U. I feel almost like crying but I'm too elated to do so. This is such a surprise. We don't have to be worried about the boys being separated anymore!!!

**This was us (and we were good)**

It's their last performance of the year. The time is ticking until the clock strikes twelve and Renjun's head is beating with all the strength of a hammer. He thinks that it would be a mercy to knock him dead here. To let him rest forever on the stage that he's been working his entire life to step upon.

He's pulled out of this morbid thought by screaming from somewhere in the distance. Screaming so loud and so high pitched, that Renjun thinks he’ll still be hearing its ring on his deathbed. His laboured breathing seems too prominent for his comfort, but he smiles broadly to the crowd gathered ahead of him and assumes his final position. The music reaches a natural end and Renjun sends out a quick thanks to whatever god is out there for the smooth run. Tempted to sit down, he instead throws an arm around Jisung and waves at the nearest set of fans while Jaemin speaks enthusiastically using words Renjun semi-understands.

The darkened space lights up in sporadic bursts with large stage lights passing over them in colourful arcs. Renjun squeezes his eyes shut tight after one unfortunately place light hits him square in the face. The temporary pain subsides slightly and when he opens his eyes Jeno is waving his hands in front of him, coloured in an off-white that doesn’t quite suit him.

“Are you okay?” He mouths, pulling his microphone away from his lips. There’s a yellow streamer dangling from his hair, just barely teasing the tip of his ear. Renjun finds himself staring at it but manages to nod gormlessly, mouth parted slightly in concentration. Jeno seems unaware of his fixation, just nodding once and then drifting away to attack Donghyuck. As he turns, Renjun retracts his arm from around Jisung's shoulder and snatches the streamer. It’s torn in half, fluttering out of Jeno locks with minimal effort.

Renjun feels crestfallen, lips twisting in ugly disappointment, before tossing the other half into the crowd and displaying his signature energy with an impromptu rap session. He gets the others to join in for a brief moment before time inevitably runs out and they thank fans for the opportunity to perform.

Midnight passes them by in a flurry of hugs and cheers and hidden tears which say much more than Renjun would ever admit.

Renjun thinks he's got time to tell Jeno how he feels. He believes that the world is endless and love is infinite and that he'll _always have time._

He doesn't.

* * *

It takes courage to admit the truth. Renjun falls for the allure of city lights and foreign languages long before he realises this. 

And then he's doused in the reality that he's got not even an iota of courage in him.

* * *

The boys realise that their era is ending.

* * *

Renjun is fighting the inevitable. Daylight falters and feeds the night-time. He knows he should move, knows he should take those first stilted steps, should force his legs to move and climb out of the numbness which seems to have settled within his limbs.

This stagnation has meant that he’s jittery, bones vibrating and disintegrating with all the fragility of loose parchment. He wonders - as he often does on hazy summer nights like this - what words would be left to read if he were to unravel. _I’m probably blank, like a sketchbook belonging to someone without a pen._

He lazily examines the slow-healing gash on his forearm, bandage having half-peeled off in the time between lunch and now. He doesn’t have a spare and doesn’t think it’s of enough importance to matter. The surrounding skin is a swollen shade of spring purple, ripe enough to burst, His weighted stare invokes a dull throb from his shoulder-down. Renjun casts his gaze out towards the window, glass mottled and blurred so he sees only a low definition image of the world that lives outside their dorm.

He should move.

Cracking his knuckles, once, twice he swings his feet forwards and makes contact with the matted rug under his feet, shaggy material soothing the itch that has risen to the surface of his skin, a by-product of his unwillingness to move. Deciding against changing, he grabs a buttery leather jacket from its hook before slipping into a pair of too-small shoes.

The door clicks quietly behind him, but he doesn’t notice, earphones already blocking out the world around him, sounds disappearing and refocusing as he makes his way out of the building and follows his internal compass in a random direction. Hopefully he’ll get to a park to take advantage of the dying sunlight that’s passing over him in bursts of smooth warmth.

He wanders far and long, aching feet bringing him somewhere unknown. Jeno lingers close behind, as he often does these days, and Renjun pretends not to notice. They eventually come upon somewhere where the city melts into the horizon and the roads seem to meander on forever. There's much to be said about sleeping cities. Renjun has travelled the world. He's captured the tastes and scents of cultures that he had once only dreamed about. And yet he always returns to Seoul, heart in his hands and offered up to this foreign land with bated breath. 

The air pollution rises up and clogs the paths of the sky but Renjun has only ever had eyes for the buildings beneath. The rise and fall of the landscape has carved out something similar to a heartbeat and the city lights are like blinking eyes that stare back at him. 

Renjun has been to countless cities but Seoul is a sleeping beast that captured him long ago when he was too young to understand that falling for a city is just as heartbreaking as falling for another person. 

At age 15, Renjun became a trainee. Seoul had taken him captive and shaken up his insides. Now he's being thrown back into a world that no longer belongs to him. A world with too many languages, all overlapping and overflowing so that Renjun is bathing in white noise. _Now,_ at the age of 19, he wonders if he's done enough to call himself a person.

It takes his breath away.

* * *

Maybe in another life they could have made it work.

* * *

It’s night, stuck somewhere between the rising of the sun and the stained silk of midnight. He should be at home, trying and failing to get Chenle to stop playing Overwatch and go to sleep. Renjun isn’t at home. He’s nowhere, really. At least, not anywhere that he recognises. He muffles a bitter laugh, escaping his lungs without his consent. He doesn’t think he’s been recognising anything recently. Months of milky vision building up and clouding his perception. Renjun knows that he should slow down. He should’ve savoured the last few trickles of light up on stage the past year. It was foolish to forget the inevitable.

“But I can’t slow down time.” Renjun shudders, not from the cold but from what’s to come. It’s too much for him to handle and, not for the first time, Renjun wishes Mark was still with them. He always fit the role of oldest; it was like a second skin to Mark in a way Renjun could never emulate.

But that’s exactly the problem. Mark isn’t here and soon enough he won’t be either.

Huddled up on a set of stairs, looking down upon a lit-up fountain, Renjun feels smaller than ever and he drops his head into his hands, trying to drown out the blue light and bluer thoughts.

Jeno is sitting close, watching a plane flying overhead. He says nothing but tightens his hold on Renjun's hand. His ring digs into the flesh of Renjun's palm but he only smiles, something hard and fragile but endlessly bright. Mark may have left but they've worked hard to live up to his shadow. We've done well. Renjun thinks. 

And they have.

There's too much pain to be unpacked. Too many memories lurching forward with every breath that Renjun takes. But right now, with the presence of Jeno so close, Renjun can only bask in their humanity. However small they may be.

* * *

**between the passing of days into night a lone flower begins to bud amongst fallen snow.**

* * *

We **were** here.

**Author's Note:**

> 14/04/20
> 
> He believes that the world is endless and love is infinite and that he'll always have time.
> 
> He does.
> 
> We're still here.


End file.
